new live recording

[mux]

Holas,

New cuts up - from my set at 4am, nice dancefloor, at a 300-person free outdoor techno party in what is probably Canada's most beautiful outdoors.

Reviews and critiques welcome: http://lfo.fsck.org/~drew/mux_-_four...-_20040717.mp3

Some pics of the party:
http://reelgeek.com/images/photos/20...rancemission7/
http://public.fotki.com/omie/t7/

The crew that threw the party:
http://soundproof.ca

Wicked, *wicked* time. Doesn't get any better than that.

[Tyrisia]

Looks like a really cool party!

I'm halfway through the set and it's sounding very good, I reckon u're dancefloor probably had a great time - keep it up.

[Tyrisia]

Oh, and whatever just came in at 21 odd minutes REALLY rocks!

[jesus]

a bit too acid for my liking,pretty good none the less. dont like the vocals bits especially the eminem.

[professor]

too acid and vocal sampled for my taste as well, but good live work! looks (and sounds) like the party was "off da chain dawg."
cheers

[dan the acid man]

the track at around 14 mins is my favourite, the rest of the tracks are a little too busy sounding for me though

[romelpotter]

very cool mate

[dirty_bass]

I was really looking forward to this, but the recording is aweful. Dude, can you record a PA digitally so we can hear properly?

The levels on this recording make it hard to comment on this really.

I`m not into this kind of acid techno, but sounds like it hit the spot with the crowd, and that`s what counts

As a live PA, it sounds like you are keeping yourself busy, which is nice to know. Lots of nice interesting sounds, that I expect will sound really phat and shokkin on a rig.

The only thing I can hear that I would have complaints about is that the tunes are very synth based, and there isn`t a lot of percussion going on.

But again, that`s a matter of taste.

So well done dude. :clap: :clap:

Please please please can we hear a nicely recorded live PA or maybe some finished tracks.

[DJZeMigL]

Well donne dude. No much comments I can offer . Good use of synths.. U could use some funkier stuff / percs/ basslines 2 sort of break from the general feeling of the live (which obviously is yer personal taste but could somehow give some sonic variety)...

Z

[mux]

Thanks to all of you for your comments! I appreciate all the feedback!

I was really looking forward to this, but the recording is aweful. Dude, can you record a PA digitally so we can hear properly?

See, this is a really tough point for me. I love to listen to live-pa sets, but when they're *perfect*, and recorded right off the mixer, I don't find I often even recognize them as being live - and if I can't tell it's live, why should I care if it was live or not? For me, that spirals down to the whole "why bring out gear, why not just record my set in the studio and bring out CD's to play for the crowd, and jump around"... I know it's a stretch, but that's my opinion.

I agree, the sound is pretty bad - it's recorded from a single $100 Sony stereo mic from the top of a scaffolding at the back of the dancefloor. Ideally, I'd like to record every set this way, and also record straight off the mixer, and mix the two recordings together - but now I'm starting to understand why high-end recording devices have "word clock" output!! It's surprisingly tough to get two recordings to sync up perfectly!

My new plan is to rebuild my Linux laptop as a Wavelab machine - it's got a nice big hard disk, and I've got an M-Audio USB "Quattro" soundcard kicking around - if I can record both the stereo mic *and* the mixer at the same time into Wavelab, then I'll hopefully end up with a recording that is worthy of listening.

I consider my livesets to be "concerts" rather than "mix sets" though, so while that may be unjustified ego, I still think being able to hear the crowd noise makes all the difference in the world in the recordings. :) I agree wholeheartedly that there needs to be a solid mix tho - the mic recordings make for a nice reverb to be played over top of the mixer recording, but to do that, I need to have both recordings at high quality. In the case of this set, the mixer recording was done to a little mp3-recorder harddisk jukebox thing, and it turned out that the recording quality was set to 112k mp3 at VBR, and on top of that the levels were off so it was overdriving for most of the set - unuseable. Sucks.

Please please please can we hear a nicely recorded live PA or maybe some finished tracks.

I'm really hoping to do this soon - I have another couple of live sets coming up, and some friends bugging me to try Ableton Live. I'm going to try to record the next liveset onto my laptop (doing the four-way thing). After the next liveset, I'm planning to sample my full set into Ableton (in the studio, of course), and assemble an EP of the best tracks... then maybe shop it around to some labels? I dunno who'd be interested, but would love some suggestions!

[dirty_bass]

Ok, if you are going to distribute a recording then you want the audio to be as good quality as possible. Simple as that, otherwise there is no point.
Hearing the acoustics of a club, the boom and distortion of a soundsystem, and the wails of munters is not really adding anything to the mix, especially not credibility, in my opinion.
It`s the sound that is the most important thing.

I consider my livesets to be "concerts" rather than "mix sets" though, so while that may be unjustified ego, I still think being able to hear the crowd noise makes all the difference in the world in the recordings. I agree wholeheartedly that there needs to be a solid mix tho - the mic recordings make for a nice reverb to be played over top of the mixer recording, but to do that

Concerts? it`s a mix mate, and definitely unjustified ego, I`m not trying to knock you down, but thats how it is.
I don`t see what difference crowd noise makes, is it to prove that it was played live?
If you can hear the crowd going nuts, but the recording is shit what does that achieve?
The live vibe can never be replicated in a recording, so why bother?
The whole point is to convey the quality of the music, and to represent your sounds, not to try and prove "look, people like my stuff, see, you can hear them shouting".
The qulity of the music will speak for itself.

Now please please please please, can we hear a nicely recorded PA?

[dan the acid man]

hearing the crowd in live mixes just annoys me to be honest, i want to listen to the music, it''s like when your in a club and you cant get rid of the person bending your ear all night :lol:

[mux]

Concerts? it`s a mix mate, and definitely unjustified ego, I`m not trying to knock you down, but thats how it is.

I see where you're coming from, but for one thing - it's *not* a mix. It's live techno - every track was my own, and every beat, note, squiggly acid line was generated live, from hardware. None of the music was prerecorded, and my role on stage was not "DJ mixing the music". A "mix" is someone playing a bunch of recordings, and making them meld together.

Hell, I've got custom-built MIDI-triggered strobe lights in my live rig! I think that's more concert fodder than "mix". I'm also trying to add a visuals computer and projector, and working with an electronics engineer to add more MIDI-responsive lighting.

The whole point is to convey the quality of the music, and to represent your sounds, not to try and prove "look, people like my stuff, see, you can hear them shouting".
The qulity of the music will speak for itself.

This is where we're going to have to agree to disagree - I think the whole point of doing live-pa is to give a performance, to give the audience a reason to believe that live electronic music is a valid artform that is different from a DJ set. I mean, if it's not different from a DJ set, what possible reason is there for me to lug $5000 worth of hardware out into the middle of nowhere, to get filled with dust and grime? If the purpose is just to represent my sounds, wouldn't it be much more efficient to record my tracks as best as possible in the studio, and bring a couple of CD's out, play them, dance around and call it a live-pa?

Oh, wait, you mean the whole point of releasing the recording as a demo... yeah, I guess. I'm not really releasing it to say "look, people like my stuff!" so much as I am trying to say "look, I'm not all talk, I'm not just releasing tracks, I can get up in front of folks and do it just as well under pressure as I can in the studio". The closest thing to a computer in that live rig was my MPC1000. I'm not kidding myself, I won't be sending that demo to any record labels... but I sure will give it to everyone I know who throws summer outdoor parties, so that maybe they'll go "Hey, I bet you'd be great at my next party!". I don't do this for a living, and doubt I'll ever be able to - I don't enjoy the recording parts *nearly* as much as the getting up on stage parts - IMHO, recording the techno is just a necessary evil, how you get your name known so you can play more live shows. :)

I have a set I did back in about 2000, where one of the coolest things about the set was that there was some guy in the audience (I never found out who) with a whistle. For the first bit, it was annoying, but then I did a track where I wasn't using my Yamaha DX-7, so I dialled up a "police whistle" patch, and we did this awesome call-and-response thing together! I played a whistle pattern, he answered, he played a whistle pattern, I answered... problem is, I only recorded the mixer, so it doesn't make any sense at all in the recording, since you can only hear my whistles. WIthout the context of the room ambience and the crowd, it sounds pretty lame, actually.

I respect and value everyone's opinions on this one - but in my opinion, the best recorded livesets have a mix of both the mixer signal *and* a stereo microphone catching the crowd. When I listen to a liveset, I want the sound quality of a mixer recording, but if I can't hear that the recording was done at a real party, then it might as well have been done in someone's studio - and IMHO, the whole point of live-pa is the performance of the techno in front of a bunch of people.

Am I making sense? Am I just deluding myself? Seriously, one of my flightcases is a full 90 pounds, and my studio is in an attic - I have to beleive that doing the techno live is worthwhile, if I want to continue carrying that flightcase up and down six flights of stairs every time I do a show... if all anyone wants is a high-quality mix, then it doesn't seem like it's worth it.

That being said, I have a headliner timeslot at another outdoor party next weekend, and I will do my utmost to ensure that I get the best possible recording of my set. Maybe I'll even release a version without crowd noise - but that won't be the one I listen to. :) Coming up in the fall, parties slow down for a few months, and in that time I want to take the tracks that work best on a crowd and record, chop, arrange and master them in the studio as proper, finished tracks... now *those* won't have any crowd noise in them!

[dirty_bass]

In terms of recording, then a live recording "ie mics in a room" is arse. Sounds crap,full stop. I don`t need canned laughter, or cheering to tell me the music works, I just wanna hear the music.
As for the whole, how live is a live PA debate. I think this argument is irrelevant these days. Face it, your live PA, as much gear as you take out, is still programmed to a point, you only have 2 pairs of hands, therefore there will allways be automation present.
Who gives a crap, You could be on a laptop (which admittedly looks poo) or with 6 full moog modular units and an old 909, or a couple of denons and all your own tracks on cd, and most people wouldn`t give a damn, it`s what comes out of the speakers that counts. If it`s your music, it`s your music.

Personally, I am just really interested in hearing your music mate, genuinely. I`m not dissing ya, I just thought that audio you posted didn`t represent, and I`d like to hear your tunes and not some bunch of cheering clubbers. I know what a cheering crowd sounds like, but not what your tunes sound like.

So please post some stuff, cos I ain`t gonna get to hear ya otherwise.

Now from a professional point of view. If you wanna get international bookings with your live PA, it needs to be as portable as possible. Otherwise the cost to book you due to transport fee`s and logistics (no room for you stuff in club X or whatever) will be unjustifiable.
Also, baggage handlers are notorious for damaging shit, and also nicking shit. you start touring with that amount of kit, and it`s gonna get damaged at some point, and maybe even go missing.

I`ve managed to get my live PA down to hand luggage size, and it still sounds good, and has enough freedom in it`s structure to keep myself busy.

as an asside, I`ve just released a live PA album, and if I had of had crowd cheers on it, my distributer probably would have said I was just massaging my ego, and told me to clean it up.